State Official Doubtful Muck Plan Will Help Lake

November 1, 1989|By Ramsey Campbell Of The Sentinel Staff

OCALA — A Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission official said Tuesday he has ''strong doubts'' that an agreement between the St. Johns River Water Management District and muck farmers will help clean up Lake Apopka.

Vince Williams, a biologist who heads the commission's lake restoration program and is on the Lake Apopka Restoration Council, said he questioned whether the lake could be restored if it receives the level of farm pollution allowed under the agreement.

Williams was testifying at the end of a two-day hearing called at the request of Jim Hawley, a Killarney mobile home park owner and environmental watchdog. Hawley says the agreement between the muck farmers and the water district is a sham.

The agreement calls for muck farmers to build a 10-mile ditch system to stop water seeping into the fields from Lake Apopka.

Formal adoption of the agreement between St. Johns officials and the Zellwood Drainage District - a group of 18 farmers on the north shore of the lake - has been set aside until the outcome of Tuesday's hearing is decided in about two months.

Ed Lowe, an aquatic ecology specialist for the water district who also is on the restoration council, said he too doubts the agreement would work. The restoration council was created by the legislature to advise the water district on how to clean up Lake Apopka. Its members were appointed by the governor.

Others, however, are more hopeful the agreement will work.

''It does what we feel is most appropriate for that area,'' said John Wehle, assistant executive director for the water district. ''We got a legal commitment and acknowledgement of our enforcement rights. The strength of the agreement is in the performance standards.''

Those performance standards require farmers to reduce the amount of phosphorous pumped to the lake by 56,000 pounds a year. Although district officials initially said that would mean an 80 percent reduction in pollution by the farmers, they backed off that claim during the hearing.

Wehle said it would be almost five years - the time needed to build the ditch system - before the water district can measure the reduction in phosphorus.

Hawley has said the agreement has so many loopholes that farmers can claim a reduction in phosphorus while still pumping polluted water into the lake.

Lake Apopka is one of the state's most polluted bodies of water. The muck farms have been given much of the blame. Farmers periodically flood their fields to preserve the nutrient-rich muck. When the fields are drained, the runoff to the lake is rich in fertilizers and pesticides.

Merritt Fore, a member of the water district board who last May voted in favor of the the agreement, conducted the hearing. ''Some concerns have been raised here that weren't brought to our attention before,'' he said.

Fore said he will make a recommendation within two months, and then the board will make a final decision.